OpenAI Unveils GPT-5: Sam Altman Hails 'Major Upgrade'

OpenAI has officially unveiled GPT-5, marking what CEO Sam Altman hails as a “major upgrade” and a significant leap forward in the capabilities of large language models. The highly anticipated next-generation system, which has been the subject of intense speculation for months, began rolling out to all ChatGPT users, including those on the free tier, on Thursday.

The company asserts that GPT-5 is its smartest, fastest, and most useful model to date, boasting a more natural and human-like conversational style. A key focus in its development was a significant improvement in reliability and factual accuracy, aiming to reduce the “hallucinations” — confidently wrong responses — that have been a common flaw in previous large language models. OpenAI’s head of ChatGPT, Nick Turley, highlighted that this new model offers much better accuracy and a lower hallucination rate.

One of the most transformative features of GPT-5 is its enhanced reasoning engine. Instead of quickly generating surface-level responses, the model now weighs more potential answers in parallel, allowing it to better validate facts internally. This improved architecture, which reportedly incorporates “o3 reasoning level” abilities, enables GPT-5 to excel at complex, multi-step logic problems and planning tasks that challenged GPT-4. Sam Altman described the experience of interacting with GPT-5 as akin to having “a team of PhD-level experts in your pocket.”

For developers, GPT-5 represents a substantial upgrade, particularly in coding. Michelle Pokrass, ChatGPT post-training lead, stated that GPT-5 is the best coding model for developers. It introduces a new feature called “vibecoding,” allowing users to create any app simply by asking GPT-5 to code it. The model also demonstrates stronger frontend design skills and enhanced agentic capabilities, enabling it to complete complex coding tasks autonomously with minimal prompting.

Beyond coding, GPT-5 offers a suite of improvements designed to make the AI experience smarter, safer, and more personal. It features a massive 256K token context window, significantly expanding its memory and allowing it to track more information in a single conversation, including long documents and prior user messages. This expanded memory helps reduce the chance of the model contradicting itself or inventing information. OpenAI has also introduced a new “safe completions” framework, where the model attempts to provide the most helpful and accurate response within safety boundaries, and explains why if it cannot assist.

Notably, OpenAI is shifting towards a unified system with GPT-5, aiming to integrate its various technologies and eliminate the need for users to manually select different models for specific tasks. This means GPT-5 is designed as an all-in-one “super assistant” that can seamlessly juggle multiple tasks, combining memory, reasoning, vision, and task execution. It will also have the capability to generate large, varied outputs with different answers each time to the same question.

The rollout strategy for GPT-5 is tiered, providing access to all users. While free users will have access to the standard GPT-5, Plus subscribers will benefit from “advanced reasoning” with higher usage limits, and Pro and Team users will gain access to “GPT-5 Pro,” described as offering “research-grade intelligence.” Microsoft is also swiftly incorporating GPT-5 into a wide array of its products, including Microsoft 365 Copilot and GitHub Copilot, leveraging its new reasoning capabilities and improvements in coding and chat across its platforms.

This launch comes amidst intense competition in the AI landscape, with OpenAI vying for supremacy against tech giants and heavily funded startups. Sam Altman, while emphasizing the significant advancements, clarified that GPT-5 does not yet constitute “artificial general intelligence” (AGI), as it cannot continuously learn. However, he stressed it is “a significant step along the path to AGI.” The unveiling of GPT-5, teased with cryptic messages and a “LIVE5TREAM” announcement, underscores OpenAI’s continued ambition to redefine the boundaries of generative AI.

GPT-5 isn’t just an upgrade; it’s a “PhD-level expert in your pocket,” ready to redefine human-AI collaboration.